Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Mariana M. Marquez, Maurice J. Chacron
Summary: This study investigated how neuromodulation affects population coding of behaviorally relevant stimuli and found that electrical stimulation of the raphe nuclei enhances population coding by ON-type cells in the electrosensory system of weakly electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus, while having no effect on OFF-type cells. Furthermore, behavioral responses were only correlated with changes in population coding by ON-type cells.
Article
Neurosciences
Michael G. Metzen, Maurice J. Chacron
Summary: The study found that under natural stimuli, the correlation between neuronal activities depended on distance, while noise correlations were independent of physical distance. Decoding performance was best for a timescale of 6 ms, indicating that midbrain neurons transmit information via precise spike timing. Different weight combinations of neuronal activities could achieve similar discriminability, showing robustness in information transmission by midbrain neuron populations.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Brenda Toscano-Marquez, Livio Oboti, Erik Harvey-Girard, Leonard Maler, Ruediger Krahe
Summary: Acetylcholine acts as a neurotransmitter/neuromodulator in the central nervous system of weakly electric fish, showing specific distribution of cholinergic neurons. The study identifies new cholinergic connections in the brain and proposes novel hypotheses regarding their functional significance, including modulation of responses to electrosensory and visual stimuli. Additionally, the source of cholinergic fibers innervating the electrosensory lateral line lobe is likely the octavolateral efferent nucleus, suggesting a potential role in modulating electrosensory processing during locomotion.
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Drew N. Robson, Jennifer M. Li
Summary: State-dependent computation plays a crucial role in cognition for both biological and artificial systems. Alan Turing and ethologists recognized its power in describing internal drives and behaviors. This article reformulates core ethological concepts in terms of explicitly dynamical systems and examines neural dynamics underlying internal states.
CURRENT OPINION IN NEUROBIOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Ecology
Daphne Soares, Kathryn Gallman, Maria Elina Bichuette, Eric S. Fortune
Summary: The adaptive-shift hypothesis suggests that cave-dwelling species have evolved from ancestor species in surface habitats by exploiting exaptations for subterranean life. Weakly electric Gymnotiform fishes, nocturnal South American teleost fishes, have features that appear to be exaptations for troglobitic life. The electric fish Eigenmannia vicentespelaea, endemic to a cave in Brazil, generates stronger electric fields compared to its surface relative, possibly due to lack of predation pressure or enhanced sensory abilities.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Review
Neurosciences
M. Jerome Beetz, Julio C. Hechavarria
Summary: Echolocation behavior is an important navigation strategy that allows us to understand neural processing related to behavior. Recent research focuses on how natural echolocation signals are encoded in the bat brain and processed in complex environments.
FRONTIERS IN NEURAL CIRCUITS
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Federico Pedraja, Hendrik Herzog, Jacob Engelmann, Sarah Nicola Jung
Summary: The study utilizes supervised learning methods to analyze electrocommunication in weakly electric fish, providing a detailed workflow based on open resource software. By applying the approach to analyzing dyadic interactions of Gnathonemus petersii, it is shown that passive electrosensory input can effectively locate contenders in the pre-contest phase.
FRONTIERS IN BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Xiao Yang, Eve McGlynn, Rupam Das, Sergiu P. Pasca, Bianxiao Cui, Hadi Heidari
Summary: The article discusses the importance of neuromodulation as a research tool and therapeutic approach for brain disorders, highlighting the recent advancements in nanotechnology enabling novel neuromodulation modalities. It summarizes the research progress and outlines current challenges and future directions for next-generation neuromodulation modalities.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2021)
Review
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Shan Jiang, Xiang Wu, Nicholas J. Rommelfanger, Zihao Ou, Guosong Hong
Summary: This review article provides an overview of recent advances in optical neuromodulation and its applications in addressing physical constraints of in vivo light delivery. The article presents the latest optical techniques for neuromodulation and explores new methods for minimal invasiveness and footprint.
NATIONAL SCIENCE REVIEW
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Adeola Oyeyinka, Mehul Kansal, Sean M. O'Sullivan, Claudia Gualtieri, Zachary M. Smith, Fernando J. Vonhoff
Summary: Exposure to alcohol has different effects on nervous system function in males and females. The study on fruit flies shows that the sex difference in sedation sensitivity is related to the Corazonin neurons and the transcription factor apt. This study sheds light into the molecular mechanisms of sex differences in ethanol-induced behaviors.
FRONTIERS IN NEURAL CIRCUITS
(2022)
Editorial Material
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Vielka Salazar, Ana Silva
Summary: This article introduces a study on how the brain decodes sensory features from social signals, using electric fish as a model. It highlights the role of mixed selectivity coding and corollary discharges at the thalamic level in guiding decision-making in social behavior.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Joanna Jacob, Sally Watanabe, Jonathan Richardson, Nick Gonzales, Emily Ploppert, Garet Lahvis, Aaron Shiels, Sadie Wenger, Kelly Saverino, Janhavi Bhalerao, Brendan Crockett, Erin Burns, Olivia Harding, Krista Fischer-Stenger, Kelly Lambert
Summary: This study compared the neural and endocrine differences between wild rodents and laboratory strains. The wild-trapped rats had heavier brains, higher densities of cerebellar neurons, and greater spleen and adrenal weights. These findings contribute to enhancing the translational value of preclinical laboratory rodent studies.
BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Biology
Richard Burkett Dewell, Ying Zhu, Margaret Eisenbrandt, Richard Morse, Fabrizio Gabbiani
Summary: Excitatory input synaptic mapping affects the fine stimulus discrimination ability of single neurons and has a functional impact on behavior.
Article
Neurosciences
Boateng Asamoah, Ahmad Khatoun, Myles Mc Laughlin
Summary: Through applying exogenous extracellular fields to modulate slow-wave neural oscillations in anesthetized rats, it has been demonstrated that these fields can modulate the amplitude of endogenous neural oscillations in a frequency-specific resonance pattern without affecting spike rate.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Biophysics
Uikyu Chae, Hyogeun Shin, Nakwon Choi, Mi-Jung Ji, Hyun-Mee Park, Soo Hyun Lee, Jiwan Woo, Yakdol Cho, Kanghwan Kim, Seulkee Yang, Min-Ho Nam, Hyun-Yong Yu, Il-Joo Cho
Summary: This study developed a bimodal MEMS neural probe for recording both electrical and chemical signals of cells. By delivering chemicals to co-localized brain regions, the probe successfully monitored and modulated neural activities. This bimodal probe offers opportunities for in-depth studies of brain functions and neural circuits related to brain diseases.
BIOSENSORS & BIOELECTRONICS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Chengjie G. Huang, Michael G. Metzen, Maurice J. Chacron
Article
Neurosciences
Mariana M. Marquez, Maurice J. Chacron
JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY-LONDON
(2020)
Article
Neurosciences
Michael G. Metzen, Volker Hofmann, Maurice J. Chacron
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2020)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Volker Hofmann, Maurice J. Chacron
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2020)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Mariana M. Marquez, Maurice J. Chacron
FRONTIERS IN INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2020)
Article
Biology
Isabelle Mackrous, Jerome Carriot, Kathleen E. Cullen, Maurice J. Chacron
Article
Neurosciences
Michael G. Metzen, Maurice J. Chacron
Summary: The study found that under natural stimuli, the correlation between neuronal activities depended on distance, while noise correlations were independent of physical distance. Decoding performance was best for a timescale of 6 ms, indicating that midbrain neurons transmit information via precise spike timing. Different weight combinations of neuronal activities could achieve similar discriminability, showing robustness in information transmission by midbrain neuron populations.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Editorial Material
Behavioral Sciences
Maurice J. Chacron, Michael R. Markham
FRONTIERS IN INTEGRATIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jerome Carriot, Kathleen E. Cullen, Maurice J. Chacron
Summary: Weber's law is considered a fundamental principle of perception, but it is an oversimplification with observed violations; perceptual performance exceeds predictions from Weber's law for higher stimulus amplitudes commonly found in natural sensory stimuli; the study reveals the neural basis for violations of Weber's law and how variability contributes to adaptive encoding of natural stimuli.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ziqi Wang, Maurice J. Chacron
Summary: The study revealed that correlations between neural activities of hindbrain electrosensory neurons can enhance information about the structure of natural communication stimuli, allowing downstream brain areas to reliably discriminate between different waveforms. This suggests that synergistic interactions between neural activities can improve discrimination performance.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jerome Carriot, Graham McAllister, Hamed Hooshangnejad, Isabelle Mackrous, Kathleen E. Cullen, Maurice J. Chacron
Summary: The study examines sensory adaptation to natural and artificial stimuli and finds that adaptation actually reduces coding ambiguity without compromising the optimality of coding under natural stimulation.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Myriah J. Haggard, Maurice Chacron
Summary: In this study, multi-unit recordings from sensory neural populations using high-density arrays were conducted to investigate how a heterogeneous neural population encodes object location. The researchers found that the receptive fields were highly heterogeneous and that spike-count correlations varied along the receptive field. A mathematical model was also built to demonstrate that experimentally observed heterogeneities in receptive fields optimize information transmission.
PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Mariana M. Marquez, Maurice J. Chacron
Summary: This study investigated how neuromodulation affects population coding of behaviorally relevant stimuli and found that electrical stimulation of the raphe nuclei enhances population coding by ON-type cells in the electrosensory system of weakly electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus, while having no effect on OFF-type cells. Furthermore, behavioral responses were only correlated with changes in population coding by ON-type cells.
Article
Neurosciences
Yang He, Jun Tang, Meng Zhang, Junjie Ying, Dezhi Mu
Summary: This study investigated the protective effects and mechanisms of human placenta derived mesenchymal stem cells (hPMSCs) transplantation in a rat model of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). The results showed that hPMSCs transplantation reduced apoptosis and improved long-term neurological prognosis. Furthermore, the downregulation of Sema 3A/NRP-1 expression and activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway played a key role in the protective effects of hPMSCs.
Article
Neurosciences
Emily L. Isenstein, Edward G. Freedman, Jiayi Xu, Ian A. DeAndrea-Lazarus, John J. Foxe
Summary: This study evaluated electrophysiological discrimination of parametric somatosensory stimuli in healthy young adults to understand how the brain processes the duration of tactile information. The results showed that participants did not electrophysiologically discriminate between 100 and 115 ms, but they exhibited distinct electrophysiological responses when the deviant stimuli were 130, 145, and 160 ms. These findings contribute to a better understanding of tactile sensitivity in different clinical conditions.
Article
Neurosciences
Juliana R. Souza, Ludmila Lima-Silveira, Daniela Accorsi-Mendonca, Benedito H. Machado
Summary: This study demonstrates that A2A receptors play a crucial role in modulating synaptic transmission in the NTS neurons and are required for the enhancement of glutamatergic transmission observed under short-term sustained hypoxia conditions.
Article
Neurosciences
Miki Hashizume, Rina Ito, Rie Suge, Yasushi Hojo, Gen Murakami, Takayuki Murakoshi
Summary: The basolateral amygdaloid complex (BLA) is closely involved in the formation of emotional memories, including both aversive memory and contextual fear memory. Acute sleep deprivation (SD) disrupts the acquisition of tone-associated fear memory in juvenile rats, but has no significant effect on contextual fear memory. Slow network oscillation in the amygdala contributes to the formation of amygdala-dependent fear memory in relation to sleep.
Article
Neurosciences
Qunxian Wang, Shipeng Guo, Dongjie Hu, Xiangjun Dong, Zijun Meng, Yanshuang Jiang, Zijuan Feng, Weihui Zhou, Weihong Song
Summary: GSDME plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease by regulating the switch from apoptosis to pyroptosis and participating in neuroinflammatory response. Knockdown of GSDME has been shown to improve cognitive impairments, indicating that GSDME could be a therapeutic target for Alzheimer's disease.
